For a few years after leaving college I used to sell a heifer or two to neighbours from the freezer. It was one the best educations on beef.

These beef lessons were tough on occasion There was times when certain cuts were ordered and never wanted after. Sometimes money needed to be chased up and I saw what cuts were hard to move.

The first heifer had a carcase of 261kg, 120kg of which was sold in its cheapest form, mince.

The next highest percentage came from many beef farmers most viewed part of the animal, the backside. Seventeen per cent of the carcase was sold in round steak or roast form, bringing in a few euro/kg more than the mince.

You could be looking at those cuts for a long time. It’s unfortunate that cattle aren’t made up completely of fillets and striploins.

The volumes of these high-value cuts were short in supply. Long-term, it changed the breeding policy here. We moved away from breeding for extra muscled rear-ends to a more functional animal. From a business perspective, I learned that farmers sell cattle but are paid for beef, a fact that is still lost on some farmers.

Beef is a cut-throat business in all meanings of the phrase and it is also a numbers game.

The ABP/Slaney deal has dominated beef headlines for a few months.

You can see why farmers in the southeast are concerned. With no independent factory in the region, efficiencies gained are unlikely to be passed back to farmers.

The flip side of the argument is that, if we have access to more markets to ship beef to, who has a better chance of moving it? An independent factory or one of the larger entities?

Ireland is a much smaller island than we think. It’s not unusual for west Cork cattle to go as far as Donegal, passing ABP’s plant in Bandon on the way.

What would happen if one of the global meat giants such as Cargill or JBS were to come in and buy out ABP?

It’s not impossible, especially now that JBS has a presence here.

I was in one of Cargill’s plants in the US a few years ago. It processes 5,500 cattle a day. That’s about the same as the number killed in the Republic of Ireland in a day.

When the national kill here rises, prices slip back. That figure was one of my concerns when I saw Meat Industry Ireland’s Foodwise 2025 action plan.

Frustration

My initial reaction was of strong frustration when I saw the lack of focus on producer profitability. On the other hand, it’s good to see they have confidence in how they will accommodate extra production in coming years. The plan requires just short of an extra 5,000 cattle a week, but these animals are coming on stream anyway.

You can’t stand still and expect to thrive while the world around you moves forward either. The resistance to producing in-spec cattle will see a rise in either factory-owned feedlots or the development of a contract type system as seen in the likes of the pig and poultry sectors, with more integration and control in the hands of a few.

The Irish beef industry is consolidating and farmers don’t want it to. While in dairy it is fragmented and there is a clamour for it to be consolidated. I’m a drystock stock farmer who learns a lot from the dairy industry.

Maybe the dairy sector could learn a few things from the rest of Irish agriculture?